OPINION
Newcastle United lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace on Saturday to record their second disappointing result in a row.
The Magpies were frustratingly bad against Arsenal and couldn’t rebound like fans would have hoped by beating Palace despite their clash being at St James’ Park.
However despite the downturn in form, it seems Rafa Benitez must avoid hitting the panic button at the Magpies as BBC pundit Alex Scott seemed generally impressed by what she saw.
“Normally you’re frustrated if you’re not creating any chances for your strikers but they were, they were just so wasteful,” said Scott on BBC One’s Match of the Day (23:20, Sunday April 7th).
“They had chance after chance, Ritchie there, then Rondon who has normally been putting chances like this away, so he (Benitez) must be so frustrated with his front players today.
“Having these chances, I think Rondon had 50% of the chances and just really couldn’t put one away,but they totally dominated and that will be the frustration that they allowed Crystal Palace, who they know are compact, to go on and win the game.”
It’s fair to say that Scott may have a point with her verdict when claiming the Magpies dominated the game, as they did have 18 shots at goal and had the bigger share of possession with 54% (Source: BBC).
On another day, if Salomon Rondon was at the races, the Magpies probably would have beaten Palace comfortably but that just wasn’t the case.
Yet given how the Magpies created more than enough to chances to win the game and were generally defensively sound bar DeAndre Yedlin’s reckless moment that gave away the penalty, Benitez shouldn’t make too many changes to his team for the trip to face Leicester City next week.
Normally after a second poor result in a row, a manager will be tempted to make wholesale changes to his team to freshen it up but based on Scott’s verdict the Magpies boss should keep things as they are.
